TravelStream™ news feed for member travelmichelle on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/travelmichelle en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sat, 23 Aug 2008 10:23:48 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/2/1219499100/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/2/1219499100/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/2/1219499100/tpod.html Sat, 23 Aug 2008 10:23:48 -0400 USA - south by southeast

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Columbus, Ohio, United States

there was a period of time when i lived in columbus that i thought it
was actually a god forsaken land, that working at abercrombie was just
leading me down a path of temptation but i quickly got over my
presbyterian upbringing despite the "HELL IS REAL" billboards along
I-70. coming back to columbus reminded me that the reason i loved this
place was precisely the reason why i left it. it is forever unchanging,
homogeneous, and a locus for that quintessential all american-ness that
exists only in one's imagination, colored rose by the film and music
industry. it was also a place where the locals and my company eagerly
shared in my desire to be marked by difference. and there the
contradiction lies - in a place that i appreciated for its conformity,
i loved being out of place, but then struggled with the creative
limitations inherent to the space.

i still think working at
abercrombie is the bees knees - where else do you get repeatedly told
you are the smartest, coolest, best looking person they could have
found for this job (ON EARTH)? unfortunately, it was a continuation of
the harvard elite message (minus the cool and the good looking) and i
needed to be humbled accordingly.

the 9.5 hour drive was
relatively painless, though the first few hours were kind of tough.
running on low sleep, thanks to the double chocolate chip frappachino i
had the afternoon before, the 2 beers, and 5 pitchers of margaritas
around dinner time. (SC whom i met backpacking in bali came to ny and a
suprisingly dynamic and hilarious meeting of abercrombie and
backpackers resulted.)

luckily, i was cruising to dylan, the
beatles, bloc party, wolf parade & the occasional lapses in my ipod
of britney spears and mariah carey. when i hit west virginia, it was
like my ipod could sense we had hit another world, and started crankin'
out o'death (the band from o brother where art thou).

and what
was my very first stop in columbus, ohio? the WAL MART. so cheap and so
lovely. life is just very, very good here. next stop TENNESSEE.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1213371780/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1213371780/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1213371780/tpod.html Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:01:38 -0400 Southeast Asia - "i nearly died when..."

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Melaka, Melaka State, Malaysia

forgot to mention taking a trip to melaka in malaysia from singapore after arriving from PNG. not a whole lot going on but good food! also amusing to hear people speaking a version of taiwanese...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/2/1218813180/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/2/1218813180/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/2/1218813180/tpod.html Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:21:54 -0400 USA - south by southeast

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New York City, New York, United States

is boredom self contained? or does the desire to
wander coincide with a loss of self and a need to ascribe this onto the
unknown? came back from asia with a renewed sense of ambition. family
pleased. did not return with a sense of traditional success. family not
as pleased. while the prodigal sons (my bandmates) are on the roadtrip i could not join and backpacking through peru, i will take my own roadtrip through southeastern US. less than a week, but feels like it could not come soon enough. will be armed with car, portable ipod player, tom tom (GPS), cell phone, backpack and credit card for gas!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1211781480/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1211781480/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1211781480/tpod.html Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:11:53 -0400 Southeast Asia - "i nearly died when..."

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Bangkok, Thailand

sunday

hungover from DS wedding. His mom: "I gave Jack Nicholson a blowjob he'll never forget. Want his #?." Passed out at JFK on sole possession for this trip - my backpack - an illustrious old thing that has traveled with different explorers through Africa, Europe and soon Asia. Marveled at adorable well-behaved little Japanese girl sitting next to me on flight.

monday

check out fellow backpackers on layover in japan. too tired to socialize. arrive bangkok midnight. yay new passport stamp! EP picks me up, he forgets to ask cab turn on meter, we get scammed - the first of many. jetlagged, i watch bloomberg for hours. am COMPLETELY caught up in financial news.

tuesday

early bus to damnoen saduk (floating market). the ride out is more interesting - catching a glimpse of "real" life. the locals make fun of us in the market - probably about how cheap we are! odd to see enormous BURBERRY window display in the bangkok megamall just behind incense burning temple on street corner. capitalist forces, aka the mall, co-opted the name of the temple. will the origin cease to exist one day? night bus to chiang mai, in northern thailand. wrap my body around my belongings - highway robbers won't be getting a single piece of my crap! - wake up to sunrise over the mountains as it transforms from a deep cobalt to pink.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1208273040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1208273040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1208273040/tpod.html Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:06:28 -0400 Southeast Asia - "i nearly died when..."

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New York City, New York, United States

i couldn't tell you a single thing about my dreams for the future and that terrified me into doing the easy thing: resume building. starting at the age of four. i have to admit, my resume IS pretty awesome. harvard, juilliard, oxford, carnegie hall (thrice), corporate jobs at abercrombie & fitch, j.crew, calvin klein. socially, i was also feeling quiet fabulous. besides work getting in the way of my social schedule, i was a newly minted rockstar for a band covered in indie blogs as "potentially one of the finest bands to emerge so far this century," by the new york times, by new york magazine and by mick jones himself. oh wait, does that sounds like another resume line?

JS told me, how will they ever make a movie about you if you just work at calvin klein? truth. i quit my job a week later. JS, a dear friend of mine, shares the pedestal with JSM (John Stuart Mill). While at Harvard, Mill "suffered a breakdown; already one of the most brilliant polemicists in England, he couldn't say anymore what the point of it was. As he later wrote, 'the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down.'"1

though not brilliant, this is precisely where i was. how could one have everything, and yet, nothing at all?

over the next indefinite period of time i will be traipsing around the world, getting into situations that will undoubtedly be literary worthy. but most liberating for one who has had a life plan even before starting kindgergarten, is finally not having a plan at all.


1 - Gessen, Keith, "Admission Impossible," New York Times, 16 March 2008.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1213143720/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1213143720/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1213143720/tpod.html Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:58:50 -0400 Southeast Asia - "i nearly died when..."

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Kundiawa, Papua New Guinea

also entitled: "why PNG is developing backwards"

1. As mentioned before, the roads are unpaved, rocky and poorly maintained, but really who needs infrastructure when...
2. Landslides occur frequently and the government could care less when the poor majority can't afford to contact the government in Port Moresby, when...
3. Flying is the only efficient way of transportation
4. Therefore, "parliamentary democracy" is a complete farce run by a corrupt elite unconcerned by the fact that...
5. Clan warfare is still commonplace, often spilling out into the streets, whereas gun warfare is isolated to battles in the bush, not on streets. Quite civilized, i must say.
7. Cannibalism is back
8. Life expectancy is a paltry 45 years - malnutrition is widespread, I have never seen so many club feet (or bare feet) in my life. Cleft lip, spine ebbifida, AIDS/HIV, and cancer also plague the population.
9. Corruption even effects things like cell phone service, which recently arrived but the foreign provider is banned from contacting landlines and cellphones operated by the government provider.
10. Although the land is extremely fertile, domestic trade is impossible due to road conditions, so most families are subsistence farmers
11. Von Dutch clothing and accessories are widespread here, and NOT knockoffs. That's when you know your brand has hit rock bottom!
12. You can only get used clothing and books here and the children wear tshirts that say offensive things like, "fuck your mother" because there is tight control on things such as foul language, pornography, etc. Basically, social freedoms are restricted but killing and corruption are ok.
13. Though nominally Christians, they believe in black magic. Women are accused of sorcery, beheaded and burned. Child abuse and domestic abuse are prevalent especially in rural areas where volunteers cannot access.
14. There is no culinary tradition - the only dish is "throw everything into a pot" for breakfast, lunch & dinner. There is no tradition of hygeine so people spit, walk barefoot, don't clean their clothes, brush teeth or bathe very often (in the towns, BO is the overwhelming scent), and the women often have facial hair (beards) that they don't take off. All very bizarre. Garbage is dealt with by burning it on the side of the road.
15. Wealth/handouts are given to the tribal head, who will indiscriminantly dole out benefits to his tribe, if at all.
16. Work is a new concept for PNG, so most use it as a place to nap, charge their cell phones, play solitaire. The concept of "firing" is also new, so fired people remain on the payroll and/or you have to wage a protracted multi-month battle just to get the keys back or get them to move out of their office. Some people turn their offices into a home, since its nicer than their village.
17. Overheard at Bank from man in one flipflop: I'm a police officer...One day I'm going to rob this bank. I'm serious. I'm serious. This is discrimination!
18. You know there's a problem when the aid workers from Africa are like, THIS PLACE IS CRAZY!
19. African aid worker: I don't understand...in my country, we just gun them all down. Why don't we just gun these people down??
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1213229880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1213229880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1213229880/tpod.html Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:45:26 -0400 Southeast Asia - "i nearly died when..."

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Mt. Wilhelm, Papua New Guinea

Also entitled, "It's Just After the Next Ridge"

Saturday/Sunday we climbed Mt. Wilhelm, PNG's highest peak at 4509 meters (~15800 ft).

What Lonely Planet doesn't tell you:
- To get to Mt. Wilhelm you actually have to traverse through 5 OTHER peaks
- They describe it as a "walk," but there is actually no trail and a large portion of the trek consists of loose rock, sheer cliff falloffs, rock faces and mud
- You have to start your climb at 2am with flashlights in order to reach the peak before clouds roll in just after sunrise

The drive there is treacherous - unpaved road on the edge of mountains, filled with boulders and stones. I take back anything I ever said about the roads in Cambodia being bad. On top of this, we rode in the back of a flatbed truck piled with locals, groceries and a tub of lard! I managed to sleep through all of this, and was termed catatonic by Kristen & Tim. I did waken when an entire can of Fanta was spilled on me, unbeknownst to the woman carrying it. Shortly thereafter, the same woman spit beetlenut juice on me (which looks like blood and they spit it EVERYWHERE, adding to the underlying picture of violence in this country). At any rate, this had the makings of a great trip already! On the way back, I was unfortunately quite awake and clutched the seat in front of me for dear life as the vehicle teetered over the edge and I looked straight down multiple thousand foot drop-offs. It would definitely be too much to ask for guardrails in this country.

But, what Lonely Planet DOES tell you is that, "people HAVE died on this climb," and this kept running through my head as we hiked, along with headlines of "Tourist perishes in fall off Mt. Wilhelm. Probe asks: Who tours PNG anyway?" On the way back, all I could see was "SUCKS: Tourist makes treacherous climb atop Mt. Wilhelm only to die in car crash on return"

From base camp at Kegulsol (2700m) it takes 3.5 hours to get to the lake huts (3600m). The lake huts lack electricity, heat, hot water and bathrooms. We cook in candlelight a meal of rice and peas, wake at 1am to more rice and peas. We begin our ascent to the summit w/ guides at 2am, seeing the flashlights of people ahead of us. Within the first hour, nausea sets in and I periodically vomit until all the rice and biscuits are gone. I soldier on. Pretty frequently, we see climbers turn back due to altitude sickness. I refuse! Time stands still - at every turn, we are told the peak is just after the next ridge. When day breaks, we see how steep and rough the terrain really is. At this point I'm pretty delirious and lightheaded from lack of oxygen. The plaque about the sergeant who was last seen here in 1971, really unhelpful. The cool part is seeing the ecological changes that happen with altitude - rainforest transforms into grassland, waterfalls, culminating finally in rocky crags, lichen and ice. We get to the summit at 7:30am. It's gorgeous, with views of the mountain ranges and the coasts on both sides. It's freezing and unstable at the top, so we hasten our descent. Eat more rice and peas. Most people spend the night at base camp before returning back to town. We decide to forge ahead, having made arrangements to hire a driver back. Quite proud of ourselves!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1213056840/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1213056840/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1213056840/tpod.html Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:39:13 -0400 Southeast Asia - "i nearly died when..."

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Kundiawa, Papua New Guinea

Land in Port Moresby, it takes a whopping 2 hours to get through customs, immigration and ck in for my domestic flight to Mt. Hagen, in the highlands. Flight delayed, as per the usual here. I'm told I'll be lucky if it actually takes off. My flight, fairly uneventful except for the mother wiping down her daughter's creepy head scar, drunk man in the exit row behind me who had to be forcibly moved (not before peeing on the seat), and the man that tried to get up as we were landing.

At Mt Hagen forklifts dumped luggage in front of you in lieu of baggage claim. Outside, I can't find Tim. I approach some backpackers on my flight. They tell me to hop into their truck - and split second judgment tells me being in their truck is far safer than mingling with all the locals loitering in the airport gesturing at me. We go to nearby café where this girl tells me she is happy to be back in civilization after being "in the bush." I look around, this is NOT civilization. Tim finds his way to me with a security officer and some VSO volunteers. We tour Mt Hagen. The hospital was quite unsanitary, a lot of loiterers.

Tim's Commentary:
- This town this is the final frontier, beyond which is sheer chaos
- By the way, they've started to eat people again here
- Unwrapped meat just piled in freezer bins: this is grade crap meat imported from New Zealand, and it's either to the dogs or PNG

Market is big w/ lots of fresh vegetables and weird mu-mu like dresses. We hop onto ambulance to get to Kundiawa with our groceries, much better than taking public transport. Bumpy unpaved road, but of course I fall asleep.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1212450840/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1212450840/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1212450840/tpod.html Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:35:20 -0400 Southeast Asia - "i nearly died when..."

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Bali, Indonesia

on the way to bali my flight was delayed 8 hours and my luggage was lost on arrival. the domestic terminal is the biggest piece of crap i have ever seen. despite all the no smoking signs in the terminal, EVERYONE is smoking inside. the departure screen conflicts with everything else and i end up befriending every foreign looking person i can find. a group of malaysians seem to take interest in me - but i bond with PC, who is meeting up with friends to go diving in bali. he's from new zealand, but grew up in jakarta and went to school in the states. glad we became friends, because he helped me find hotel and direct my lost luggage. amazed that i was able to fall asleep sitting on the concrete floor with my head on my knees and my bag wrapped around my legs.

kuta beach is cancun for australians. get a good feel for the town by walking around in search of housing (after my bathtub at melasti was filled w/ rain water). my new place, much cheaper but has no AC, hot water, towels, blankets and they have run out of toilet paper. haha. sunset on the beach, dinner with PC, LW, SC et al, and go clubbing for the first time in years. whatever they put in "wendy bear" thermos drinks are surprisingly strong. go up to australian surfer looking really pleased w/ himself on stage and ask him if he likes boys. he hearts me, we become friends.

usually when i'm hungover i become extremely productive so i got a bunch of stuff done, including booking my flight to papua new guinea!!! met up with the crew for lunch and we hire a driver to take us out to dreamland beach, about 45 minutes away. Halfway there he shuts off the AC - "gas costs." I'm so tired of that excuse - they should go to Europe or the US and then talk about gas prices. Beach is absolutely gorgeous. Got invited to Vietnam, tempting. Sunset at Ku De Ta in Seminyak. This place is real swank - no drinks for me as I'm still tasting the "wendy bear" from last night. Ugh.

Am completely out of rupiah so PC and I head back to Kuta for cheap eats & money changer. My first non essential purchase this trip: ridiculously large yellow sunglasses for approx $1.50. Later, have panic incident where I think I've lost my credit card and in the process lose my cell phone. But at least, I'm still solvent. No more partying for me tonight, tried to sleep except techno music was blasting and my neighbors were having really loud sex. Early AM taxi with two English girls I had met the day before, leaving on the same flight back to Jakarta.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1212751920/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1212751920/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelmichelle/1/1212751920/tpod.html Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:34:12 -0400 Southeast Asia - "i nearly died when..."

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Jakarta, Java, Indonesia

this is an email i sent out to some friends from jakarta that recaps my experience so far:

so i've come to an interesting juncture on my explorations - coinciding with some downtime in jakarta today before i head to singapore and then papua new guinea tomorrow. i've now been through parts of thailand, cambodia and indonesia. i would have loved to do most of this by land and boat - as i hate flying - but that would require a lot more time than i've allocated. i won't bore with the day to day explorations and travails. suffice it to say, the wackiest stuff happens in southeast asia - mostly due to widespread corruption and lackadaisical enforcement of standards and laws, if you can even call them laws. the only ones regulated appear to be sex and drug trafficking (technically). everything else, fair game!

i think i left on this trip with the intent to search for that ever enigmatic sense of "self." on a secondary level, i wanted to break free from a lifetime of planning and structure. of the former, i've come to realize that my "self" is just latent. so, i've stopped trying to find meaning in everything but rather choosing simply, to live. of the latter, i think i have made significant progress. i have certainly become a bit obsessed with the bohemian aspect of backpacking and the bonds made along the way. i know many cannot imagine that i of all people am living just out of a 6.5 kilo bag on my back, but it is true. i have come to realize that in this area of the world, planning means nothing except possibly wasted money, and that it is simply best to just point yourself in the direction you want to go and figure it out along the way. even basic elements that are elsewhere considered the necessities of life, i.e. shelter - are better left to be discovered upon arrival. i really admire the tenacity of the friends i've met that are traveling for 6 months, a year, even longer with only a vague trajectory, a desire to explore, and not much else.

maybe i went to the wrong places in thailand, but it was cambodia that really spoke to me. after weeding through scam after scam in thailand, cambodia was a welcome breath of fresh air. Despite its long often dark history of colonialism, dictatorship and genocide, the people were lovely. i went by land over the thai border, quite an experience itself dealing with corrupt border officials and an unpaved road on a korean bus (i am sure, remnant of the cold war) with no AC. Mud and rain flew at us through our open windows. i emerged dirtier than i ever have been, but with a big smile on my face. it was also in cambodia, that i got off my republican high horse and acknowledged that maybe, the world really is not fair, equitable or merit based. i'm still not voting for obama though :)

i went to bali on a whim and was luckily adopted by some nice kids, some of whom are ex pats living in indonesia, so i got to see bali from a more local perspective. it was a harrowing, yet typical indonesian flight experience - an 8 hour delay punctuated by a loss of luggage. i was strangely, non plussed and amused by everything. i didn't have a hostel either - so my new friends directed me towards a nice one (albeit outside my budget - but what can you do at 2am in a new city?). i moved to a much more affordable, much more ghetto hostel the next day.

and i decided to forgo vietnam for papua new guinea, torn between going off the beaten path and continuing to bond with other travelers. but the lure of warring tribes, a land with 850 indigenous languages, and a vast ecological haven just waiting to be explored could not be turned down.

so far the casualties have been my debit card (eaten by a pukhet ATM), my cell phone (swiped from an internet cafe in bali), a cheap watch (left in pukhet), my retail math calculator (that chapter is closed anyway), and i ditched my travel buddy in siem reap. all other valuables are strapped to my body, literally..i'm trying to be less lackadaisical and more responsible...but it proves hard to do.

and ultimately traveling alone as a single female has its own caveats - safety and the occasional bout of loneliness. but in every instance, where i have been nervous, the spontaneous gods have provided me with companions to meet and new life stories to hear. i have been reading blue highways, and i hope that my mistakes are only teaching me more:

If a man can keep alert and imaginative, an error is a possibility, a chance at something new; to him wandering and wondering are part of the same process, and he is most mistaken, most in error, whenever he quits exploring.

as i conclude this, the sunset contact prayer is being chanted outside my window...hello from muslim indonesia . i will return to you very poor and very mosquito bitten in a couple weeks time.
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